Sunday, March 15, 1998

The buzzards are scheduled to make their annual return to Hinckley, Ohio.

On the horizon

On Monday, March 16, representatives of the United States, China, North Korea and South Korea are to meet in Geneva for talks on the future of the Korean Peninsula.

On Tuesday, March 17, Major League Baseball owners are scheduled to meet in St. Petersburg, Florida.

On Wednesday, March 18, a drug-use trial begins in Berlin, Germany, against four former East German swimming coaches and two doctors.

On Thursday, March 19, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is scheduled to be arraigned in Los Angeles on misdemeanor battery and false imprisonment charges. The charges may be put on permanent hold as Abdul-Jabbar has settled a civil suit with victim and agreed to undergo 36 hours of anger counseling.

On Friday, March 20, the arraignment of Scott Malsky, accused of raping a 14-year-old girl and stabbing her over 30 times, is scheduled in Sarasota, Florida. He was acquitted on previous rape charges in Massachusetts.

In 1341, in the Hundred Years War, an alliance was signed between Louis IV, Roman Emperor, and Philip VI of France at Vincennes.

In 1744, in the War of the Austrian Succession, France declared war on England.

In 1767, Andrew Jackson, U.S. general, Democrat and 7th President of the United States, born. He was the first president born in South Carolina and the first to travel on a train.

In 1781, in the American Revolution, Cornwallis, with 1,900 British soldiers, defeated an American force of 4,400 in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in Connecticut.

In 1820, Maine became the 23rd state of the Union.

In 1877, the first cricket test between Australia and England was played in Melbourne, the home side winning by 45 runs.

In 1892, the first escalator, the Reno Inclined Elevator, was patented by Jesse W. Reno of New York.

In 1907, the first women members of parliament were elected in Finland when 19 constituencies returned women members. They took their seats on May 23.

In 1916, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent 12,000 troops over the border to Mexico in a failed mission to pursue the bandit Pancho Villa.

In 1917, in Russia at Pskov, czar Nicholas II abdicated for himself and his son. His brother Grand Duke succeeded as czar. On the same day, a provisional government succeeded under Prince Georgi Lvov and with Pavel Miliukov as foreign minister.

In 1922, the sultan of Egypt assumed the title of king as Fuad I.

In 1937, the first central blood bank to preserve blood for transfusion by refrigeration was set up at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.

In 1939, the German Army crossed the Czech frontier and Adolf Hitler proclaimed the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

In 1951, the Persian parliament voted unanimously to nationalize the oil industry.

In 1964, actress Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton in Montreal.

In 1975, Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate, died. In 1968, he had married Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of U.S. president John F. Kennedy.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II published his first encyclical "Redemptor Hominis," in which he warned of the growing gap between rich and poor.

In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the first executive president of the Soviet Union. On the same day, the Soviet parliament ruled that Lithuania's declaration of independence was invalid and that Soviet law was still in force in the Baltic republic.

In 1990, Iraq hanged British-based journalist Farzad Bazoft for espionage despite global pleas for clemency. He had worked for London's Observer newspaper.

In 1991, Yugoslav President Borisav Jovic resigned after nearly a week of anti-communist protests and failing to push through an army proposal to impose emergency security measures.

In 1996, pioneering aviation firm Fokker NV, once a byword for industrial expertise, collapsed, ending 77 years of Dutch aircraft making and triggering the biggest mass redundancy in Dutch history.

Newslink

A recent New York Times poll found that more and more Americans believe The Big Apple has shed its bad-boy image for a kinder, gentler environment. Find out for yourself at Total New York.